


Embrium

by Kisuki57



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, First work - Freeform, Grief, Hawke death, How to deal with stuff, Moving On, flowers as language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6572116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisuki57/pseuds/Kisuki57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Riannon Hawke died fighting Templars who were trying to capture or kill Anders, he eventually had to face memories of her and her death. Life and time move on, even when he does not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Embrium

When he needed to restock supplies, Anders avoided all of the places Embrium grew, showing a preference for the soft and mellow scent of marigold and the non-existent memories that came with it. After three years of avoiding the flower and bad memories, no marigold grew in the old spots and his stores ran low.  
When he went to gather his supplies, he collected each one by one slowly, saving the embrium for last. When he finally reached that spot on the side of the road, the memories hit him like thunder. The first gift Riannon gave Anders was an embrium flower she plucked from the side of the road as they were walking. It smelled of spice and fire and her and all the bright things in his world. Her hand, soft and warm, in his. Her laugh, tinkling like tiny silver bells and an undertone of deep violin. Her hair, dark as a banked fire, splayed across the pillow while she slept. Her eyes, silver and clear as mountain rivers, flashing when she was challenged. The red of dried blood on sand and gravel, also the red of embrium, splashed across the ground in front of him, around her, as the last moments of her life slid out of her like the black pearls from the string of her mother’s necklace that had been cut when she had moved in front of him, taken the sword meant for him. The soft broken murmur of her voice in her last words, words she never finished. I love and all the unfinished possibilities it could have been, that it could have been him.  
He stumbled back, almost falling over the gravelly rocks in his path and the bag of his herbs, then turned and fled down the road toward the place he called home. His bag lay in the road forgotten, yarrow, purple smoke bush, and the unforgettable fire iris strewn red among the golds of day lily, horned poppy, and Lenten rose, a testament to the things Rianon had taught him.  
When he reached his home, he fumbled the lock open and pushed the door halfheartedly closed behind him, leaving it cracked. He made his slow way to his bed, a simple brown cot stretched between willow poles, covered with green blankets like forests at twilight. He reached under his lone pillow for the painstakingly illustrated book of flowers and their uses. He turned through the pages slowly until he reached the one with a red center of a green flower sprouting out of a thin, delicate stem. He withdrew the flower pressed between the pages and inhaled its spicy, fiery scent, and curled up on his bed to let himself remember.


End file.
